OWC CEO Introduces the OWC DEC at the 2017 NAMM Show

WOW. Apple takes away all this stuff and raises the price of their machines and then a company comes in and brings back the take away that will make your computer heavier and you spend more money whats up with that.

We need this for 2015 and earlier retina macbook pro’s with thunderbolt 2 connectivity. At least with 1 thunderbolt port to reclaim a port taken up with the macbook pro, 4 USB 3.0 or above ports, ethernet (gigabit), HDMI (though there is already hdmi installed on 2015 mbp’s) to run a 3rd display without taking up thunderbolt hardware and of course most importantly storage, whether sata or PCIE storage. A product like this would give professional customers like me a system ready for on the road use, especially studio producers or touring musicians who DON’T want to take out external hard drives or like me DRIVE ARRAYS and other hardware. it’s bad enough taking a 2015 15″ mbp on the road in a flight case with a sonnet echo 15+ with 3 SSD’s installed, then audio interfaces, cables, power supply for the echo unit, etc. that case is heavy on the back. The DEC would be an amazing product for macbook pro owners for 2015 and earlier thunderbolt 2 spec machines both 15″ and 13″. that way, customers have the support they need on location. Yes the 2016 model really does need this, but I for one won’t be investing in a 2016 machine as I’ve had to order a 2015 custom to replace a dying macbook pro. 2016 machines have various issues including a flaw that blocks out certain controllers completely, I use certain hardware in my work and the 2016 machine I took on a road test failed completely. why would I pay £4050 for a paperweight with a touchbar that won’t run my hardware, spend extra on adaptors that take up extra space in an already tight flight case, etc. nope. the 2015mbp offfers everything I need for professional audio with protools hdx. so please OWC if you’re reading this, can you release a model to work with 2015 and earlier model machines? we really need this. we don’t want to carry around external docks with PSU’s running extra thunderbolt cables to buy separately, etc. when you’re on the road, all you want is a system that’s ready to take out of the case, turn on and go, so the DEC for me would replace at least 2 cables already and external hardware. Another suggestion to offer here that may not have been thought of is this, besides internal storage, why not give us 2 internal (covered) USB ports to use with ilok keys and software protection dongles, there’s an advantage of protection here, besides not having the dongles in view with a potential risk of theft, as dongles containing licenses for expensive software do go missing, also it frees up ports to the exterior of the system for controllers, etc. I know I mentioned giving users a 2nd hdmi port on the DEC as an idea, I have a scenario where I work with Steven Slate MTI2’s which have HDMI ports only (other than VGA), to run these together means using 1 built in hdmi controller on the macbook pro and 1 mini displayport cable with 3 usb ports used (2 of which are controlling the displays and the other is for the ilok key), my current setup for touring means that I’ve only 1 thunderbolt port on the macbook pro free which would be needed for other hardware rather than what actually happens now. An advisory would be where possible to have all ports running on one side spread across that side for better accessibility, especially when doing a cable run, that means that when hooking up devices on a managed cable run, it’s straight hookup. from USB’s to ethernet, HDMI, etc. these cables could be run like you would on your new docks, in one line, not all over the place. Please help us customers out here.